New Feature – Custom and Lookalike Audiences
We’re excited to present the ability to create Audiences within the Ad Manager procedure, complementing the current capability to utilize existing audiences to create campaigns. Users can now create fresh Custom or Lookalike audiences directly from the campaign development process, eliminating the need to return to Facebook to establish and utilize one.
What’s New?
1. Users can now generate a Custom Audience from the Retargeting dropdown in the Intended Audience section.
2. It’s now possible to create a Lookalike Audience from the Lookalike Audience dropdown in the Intended Audience section.
How It Works:
A: Create a Custom Audience
– The capacity to establish a new custom audience is accessible in the campaign builder process at the second stage – Budget and Audience > Intended Audience section > under ‘Retargeting’ tab.
– After clicking on the retargeting dropdown, ‘Create new or select retargeting audience’ the first choice is to “Create a Custom Audience”.
– Once the “Create a Custom Audience” button is clicked, the two-step operation of selecting the custom audience source and defining the specifics for the selected source starts.
– Having entered all the information, click on ‘Create audience’ and the audience creation procedure is finalized.
– An audience needs some time to ready and be eligible for selection as the target audience for any campaign after its creation.
B: Create a Lookalike Audience
– The option to create a new lookalike audience can be found in the campaign builder flow at the second step – Budget and Audience > Intended Audience section > under ‘Lookalike Audience’ tab.
– Click on the lookalike dropdown, ‘Create new or select lookalike audience’, and the first choice is to “Create a Lookalike Audience”.
– After clicking on the “Create a Lookalike Audience” button, a dialogue to define audience details such as the Data source for the audience appears.
– Upon finishing all the details, click on ‘Create audience’ and the audience creation procedure is completed.
– Lookalike audiences take a while to get ready and be eligible to be selected for any campaign as the target audience. This target audience will initially be in the populating state, and once an audience is successfully identified, the state will change to ready. If this audience is found to be too small, the audience status will change to ‘Audience not created’.
Why it Matters:
– The functionality to create a new custom or lookalike audience has been a long-awaited addition and will enhance the user experience by allowing for a more streamlined process in creating and utilizing a custom or lookalike audience for their Ad campaigns.
Important Notes:
– When creating a lookalike audience, there is an option to include a geographical region to search for an audience in the chosen country similar to the defined source audience. However, only ‘Countries’ are supported at this time, and cities, neighborhoods, provinces, etc., cannot be used as the lookalike audience location.
– Once a lookalike audience is successfully created, it will appear in the Lookalike Audience dropdown list and can be utilized for campaign creation once the status of the freshly created audience is either Ready or in a Populating state.
– Once a custom audience is formed successfully, it will be presented in the Retargeting Audience dropdown list and can be selected for campaign creation once the status of the newly created audience is Ready.
What’s next?
1. The introduction of the “Audiences” tab under Ad Manager settings is coming soon. This feature will provide users the chance to create, change, and manage both the custom and lookalike audiences outside of the campaign builder process. This is slated for release in the first week of September.
2. An addition to the custom audience source list, termed “Create a Customer list Custom Audience”, will be introduced soon.